12 days of Christmas traditions and customs

What do the 12 days of Christmas mean to you? What kind of traditions do we keep at Christmas and why do we keep them at all?

The 12 days of Christmas

The 12 Days of Christmas start on 25th December and last until the evening of the 5th January – also known as Twelfth Night. The 12 Days have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle ages and were a time of celebration.

Over the 12 days Fethiye Times will be celebrating by looking at some of the traditions and customs of Christmas and New Year and their origins.

Christmas Eve

Although Christmas Eve isn’t officially one of the 12 days, it still has traditions of it’s own.

Decorating the tree

Traditionally the day when the tree is brought into the house and decorated.

Yule Log

It was also traditional to bring the Yule Log into the house and light it on Christmas Eve. It was lit using a piece of the previous years log and then would burnt non-stop until Twelfth Night (night of the 5th January/Day of 6th January).

The Holly and the Ivy

Tradition also said that any greenery such as Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe should only be taken into the house on Christmas Eve.

‘The Night before Christmas’

Night time though is a very exciting time for young children. It is the time when Santa Claus comes.

‘The stockings are hung by the chimney with care’

Mince pies and milk are left out for Santa and nowadays carrots are left for his reindeer.

Most children are in bed way before midnight waiting for Santa to visit and no Christmas Eve is complete without a reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem, which he named “A Visit From St. Nicholas,”. It is now familiar to all as ‘The Night Before Christmas’

We hope you will join us to have a look at these traditions and others in more detail each day.

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